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Democrats Want Hillary Clinton to Go Away, Kellyanne Conway Says

Donald Trump listens as Hillary Clinton answers a question during their presidential town hall debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, October 9. A Trump counselor says members of Clinton's party do not want her to release a book about last year's campaign.REUTERS/Rick Wilking

Democrats, still seething and licking their wounds after losing the presidential election to Republican Donald Trump, want their former nominee, Hillary Clinton, to be either “useful or fade out of the limelight,” a counselor to the president said Thursday.

While appearing on Fox & Friends,Kellyanne Conway said Democrats were “whispering” that Clinton should not be publishing a book about the race.

“Look at the crackup of the left,” said Conway, who was a top Trump aide during the campaign. “You’ve got Hillary Clinton, who Democrats are whispering all over this town they wish that this book didn’t happen—that she would just either make herself useful or fade out of the limelight. Where is her bipartisan effort to try to help with infrastructure, meaningful tax reform or the opioid crisis that I work on in the building behind me every single day? We haven’t heard from her.”

Clinton is preparing to release What Happened,her book about last year’s brutal election. The book is set to appear on shelves in September, and on Wednesday the former secretary of state released an audio excerpt to MSNBC detailing her thoughts during her second debate with candidate Trump.

In the recording, Clinton described how she could feel Trump breathing down her neck while standing behind her during the town-hall-style debate and said her “skin crawled.” She also said she contemplated telling Trump, “Back up, you creep.”

Clinton explained her thought process at the time and the decision not to call out Trump. The debate came after Trump had been accused of sexual assault by several women and after the release of the Access Hollywood tape, during which Trump said his celebrity allowed him to grab women's genitals.

"Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he weren't repeatedly invading your space?" Clinton said she asked herself. "Or do you turn, look him in the eye, and say loudly and clearly, 'Back up, you creep. Get away from me. I know you love to intimidate women, but you can't intimidate me, so back up.'"

According to Conway, the book’s rollout will only further split what some have called a fractured Democratic Party that is struggling after Clinton’s stunning loss.

“She failed to make history, and she succeeds at making excuses,” Conway said. “And that is emblematic of the Democratic Party right now that is so bereft of ideas and issues that they have to then play armchair psychiatrist. We’re not going to let it happen. It’s outrageous.”